In Stephen Herek's LIFE OR SOMETHING LIKE IT, Lanie Kerigan (Angelina Jolie) is
a local Seattle television reporter whose career consists of a long series of
fluff pieces. With the blondest hair a bottle can produce and with big lips and
breasts, she thinks that she has network written all over her. With an
important position coming up at "AM USA," she is hoping to lettuce-eat her way
to stardom. You can never be too thin.

There's only one problem. A fortune-teller-for-hire homeless man called Prophet
Jack (Tony Shalhoub) has predicted the baseball score for the next Mariner's
game, a hailstorm for tomorrow and that she will die next Thursday. The first
two prove perfectly accurate so what is she to do?

Since she's the trophy fiancée of Cal Cooper (Christian Kane), the Mariner's
superstar, she wakes him on the road to talk about the meaning of their
relationship. "Why are you calling me?" he asks, not used to having serious
conversations with his blonde bombshell. "I'm really tired. It's too late for
phone sex tonight."

Luckily for the viewers, the dull-as-dishwater Kane isn't the male lead.
Unluckily for the audience, Edward Burns, who plays Lanie's disheveled cameraman
Pete, turns out to be not much better. Neither Jolie nor Burns bring much to
their roles, and their chemistry together is nearly non-existent.

Although the script contains a few good lines, about the only entertaining scene
comes when Lanie, facing eminent death, lets her hair down and leads union
strikers in an "I Can't Get No Satisfaction" songfest. The story's outline has
promise, but, after about midway through, the movie starts losing energy with
every frame. Only a miniscule part by Stockard Channing as a Barbara Walters
type briefly reenergizes the film.

How about Julie Roberts and John Cusack? Or if you to go a little older, how
about Holly Hunter and Albert Brooks? Those are many of the better casting
choices for the leads that I found myself mulling over in my mind as LIFE OR
SOMETHING LIKE IT droned on.

LIFE OR SOMETHING LIKE IT runs 1:39. It is rated PG-13 for "sexual content,
brief violence and language" and would be acceptable for kids around 12 and
up.